Scenes from the Floor March 17, 2008
Posted by keepbreathing in asinine, medicine, moments, my life, nebulizers, nurses, patient safety, respiratory therapy, stupid people.trackback
“I think that the man in 513 needs a breathing treatment,” the nurse said to me over the telephone.
“I just gave him one a couple of hours ago and he was fine. Is he in distress or do you just want him to have a treatment?” This has become a standard question when someone calls and asks me to give a treatment simply because I know that a lot of the time they are just asking for a treatment for no reason, or because it’s on their Med Administration Record sheet and they want to check off all the boxes.
“Well he is in some distress, yes. Please come see him.” I mumbled something to the affirmative and reluctantly stood up from the chair I had just sat down in. I often suspect that the RT chairs have Ass Detectors in them that are linked to our spectralink phone system to trigger a call to anyone who has just taken a seat, but I digress.
I sauntered over to 513 and looked into the room. I have learned to do a sort of in-hospital Primary Survey before entering rooms, because there are some situations that an RT just does not want to walk into. The patient in this case was sicklier than he had been a few hours ago. His skin was the grayish color of doom and he appeared cold and clammy. He had a moist washrag over his eyes and he was moaning unintelligibly. I looked up at his heart monitor and immediately saw the problem: his rate was 35 and his BP was 70/40. The nurse appeared at my side. I turned and looked at her.
“You know, I really don’t think that a breathing treatment is what he needs right now. I think what he needs right now is some atropine or something. Have you called the Critical Care Assessment Team on him?”
“No, I don’t want to bother them and I can’t find any atropine. But I think he needs a treatment. Maybe it will make his heart rate go up.”
:::
I shit you not, folks. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. I think I’ll spend my afternoon shift today filling out Risk Management forms.
What. A. Fucking. Idiot.
A nursing home somewhere is missing its DON.
Thanks for the great blog. I’ve been a faithful reader for the past few months. Always entertaining, keep it up.
Fill out those forms ASP
good god. not all nurses are dumb, really. you couldn’t prove it by this one though. unfortunately, she gives the rest of us a bad rep.
Appalling. I hope that if she ever gets sick when she is old, she doesn’t have someone taking care of her with the same sense of care and initiative and intelligence.
Other than THAT, Happy Tuesday to you, Therapist !
I have always said Robot doctors kill, meaning that they are programmed to work all the hours god sends, no wonder these doctors make slip ups when they are forced to have matchsticks keep their eyelids open when treating patients.
LOL @ AD
Kacy: this wasn’t a doc (sleep-deprived or otherwise) making this mistake…it was a nurse. Who, as AD suggests, is in the wrong job.
I once had a patient in full respiratory arrest. As I was bagging her the RN informed me she couldn’t call a code blue because the patient still had a heart rate !!
I wanted to tell her I could stop bagging and we could wait until she didn’t have a heart rate and THEN we could call a code.
Instead my coworker ripped off with an F bomb and called the code himiself.
I have been in many similar situations. Some people just don’t get it.
This is CRAZINESS